[Coldfingers]

Chris,

I am also planning a hunt with the Smith Mountain Gun. My oldest son is treating me to a trip to Montana. I managed to secure a mule deer doe tag over the counter. This will be a good shakedown for the MG.

I carried that everyday this fall in camp and never once used it on a meat item. I guess the clients were shooting too good ;*)

I do not believe you will have trouble making a clean kill on a black bear with your loads. They are tough, but I believe that hogs are tougher and loadings in your range will make bacon out of most pigs.

I also use a 300gr handcast over H110 for deep woods carry. I went up to 21.2 grains before I stopped (I went up s-l-o-o-o-l-y I might add!)

I would not feed the Smith alot of these, but, if push ever comes to shove, they shoot well and make a hole. Recoil is manageable and MY GUN has proven that it will handle them without bits and peices flying in more than one direction.

I think that for the Mule deer hunt I will use a 255 Keith over some Blue Dot. Should be fun.

If worst comes to worst, my son has a new Marlin 45/70 "just like the ol' man's" that he says I can use when he has filled his elk and deer tags.

I look at those Trappers alot when I cruise the gunshops. Someday perhaps.

Scotty

Oh yeah....HiYa Alan! Glad you made it.

 

[Coldfingers]

All this is quite interesting in light of the fact that my "stopping power" test was a miserable failure 8*)

All the powere in the world is useless when you miss the target!

As I reflect on my MISSfortune, I see that I made some errors along the way.

Having been a hard core arrow flinger for most of my life, I failed to put into practice one of the things I strongly advocat to new archers when I instruct Bowhunter Education...that is the simple fact that the brain goes through so many gyrations when a person is shooting at live animals that the very best training is to use the hunting bow for hunting small game. I believe that IF I had made it a point to do some serious small game hunting with the S&W, I probably would have not forgotten the finer points of trigger pull and would have probably made the shot.

Overconfidence played a part also since I missed a deer that I could have hit by flicking a booger at it. Again, any control of the handgun went out the window since I was not paying attention to the fine points of shooting. I hate it when I do that!

I am going to make it a point this winter to keep on punching paper but I am also going to shoot some rabbits and squirrels with the .45 so that I get past the tricks my head plays on me when the moment of truth comes up. Sometimes I am my own worst enemy in the field.


Leadflinger...your moose and bear were taken with the rifle? You cannot ask for better performance than that on those critters.

All my best,

Scotty